With a libretto by Donna Di Novelli, and poetry culled by Paola Prestini, Oceanic Verses is a 60 minute work featuring improviser Helga Davis, soprano Hila Plitmann, folksinger Claudio Prima and baritone Christopher Burchett. A meditation on fading civilizations, the exploration is led by an archaeologist, whose investigation into the ‘artifacts of song’ carries her into a collision of the past and present.

A film by Ali Hossaini within the opera, offers a contemporary perspective of the character’s emotional journeys. The sequences are a part of a larger video environment that immerses the opera’s players and audience in the folkloric landscape that inspired it.